Giants 101 provides 24/7 obsessive sports coverage of the New York Giants as a part of Sports Media 101. For news,
op/ed, game reviews, team updates and even rumors you will find all of it on Giants 101. Have an opinion - join
the discussion and drop a comment. If it's about the Giants, it's on Giants 101.

A once daily email with the top 5 most important stories from around Sports
Media 101.

Email

News Archives

New York Giants Friday Morning Storylines: Did Giants Draft for Love and not Need or Value?

May 9th, 2014 at 7:00 AM By Dan Benton

Day one of the 2014 NFL Draft is officially in the books and the New York Giants' selection of LSU WR Odell Beckham Jr. will dominate headlines for the next 12 hours until Round 2 gets underway. In the mean time, enjoy your Friday morning coffee over the following headlines and prepare for a day of Beckham overload.

Jerry Reese is a scout, and not afraid to admit it. The New York Giants GM has a scouting background, and even in the era of advanced analytics he remains an unabashed fan of the profession's role in NFL roster-building. Last week, Reese called the draft "game day for the scouts" and said it's "fun to see them rewarded with players they feel like are good players."

It was clear after the Giants picked Odell Beckham Jr. with the No. 12 pick in the draft Thursday night, that they had fallen in love. They loved their interview with him at the combine. They loved his speed. They loved that he can return kicks and punts.

"You're getting a guy who can score touchdowns in three different ways for you," Reese raved. "No way we were going to pass him up."

This time last year, I was back home in Pennsylvania, and my friends and family were over at the house watching the Draft. Everyone was having a blast, my Mom was serving a bunch of food. My stepdad kept writing down every pick, keeping track of every time an offensive lineman was selected. I was actually playing Xbox to take my mind off of what was going on. It was a party for me, but I wasn't really a part of it.

I was nervous, especially because I didn't want everyone to come over my house and then not end up getting drafted that day. So I kept the group at my house kind of small, with the people who helped me get to that point.

Getting drafted by the Giants was the best situation for me and I couldn't be happier with where I'm at. And now when we play the Eagles, my friends cheer for me AND the Eagles offense!

With the Pens leading 2-1 heading into the third period, the former Super Bowl champion prematurely celebrated Pittsburgh’s eventual 4-2 win over the New York Rangers.

And while this isn’t as bad as accidentally shooting yourself in the leg – you’ll remember Burress was sentenced to two years in prison in 2009 for a bizarre nightclub incident – relentless Twitter trolls took the opportunity to remind him of his criminal past.

18 Responses to “New York Giants Friday Morning Storylines: Did Giants Draft for Love and not Need or Value?”

kujo says: May 9, 2014 at 6:54 AM I’ll say what I said when we passed on several offensive linemen in favor of a “valuable” pick in JPP:

SH*TF*CK!

Look, ODB could become a straight up BOSS! But it won’t really matter if Eli is getting pummeled every time he drops back to pass, and if our running backs get stood up at or behind the LOS something like 25% of the time like it was last year.

This is a basic argument, and I totally get the whole “great WR prospect > great interior lineman prospect” deal. But that inequality could be amended to include several other premiere positions (DE, DT, CB). And if we abide by it as an Article of Truth, then we aren’t adapting to our current environment. We’re not evolving, and if that continues to be the case, you could line up Calvin Johnson on one side, and Jerry Rice on the other–their talent won’t be maximized because of the QB won’t get them the ball.

I hope Reese takes Su’a Filo or Gabe Jackson, but I fear that he’s going to do the whole “can’t pass up the value” schtick with one of these DL. And while he wouldn’t necessarily be wrong, he would certainly have announced that they have a lot more faith in their current OL depth chart’s longterm viability than we do.

Reply kujo says: May 9, 2014 at 6:56 AM I should add that we certainly could use a pass-rusher, almost as much as we could use an interior OL. I hope we take care of both tonight.

After Tennessee pulled Lewan off the board at 11 my guess is the Giants had about 4 players sitting at around the same value level at 12. They dismissed the corners (thank God), dismissed the safety, Clinton-Dix and looked at the two most pressing needs for upgrade: O-line and WR. From there, they measured the fall-off of the players available at 12 compared to what would probably be available at 43 and decided the fall-off from Beckham to whoever was greater than the fall-off from Z. Martin to either Cyrus Kouandjio or Joel Bitonio or Morgan Moses. Bottom line is if Reese lands a man-mountain that can actually play on Friday night, all is forgiven for jumping on the shiny hood-ornament in round 1.

Frankly I’m surprised. And it’s no knock on Beckum, who is a fine prospect. But out of 6 OLmen (counting TE) we have a mere 2 positions locked down. The rest are very shaky. I know they forgot more about football than we’ll ever know. And I’d like to think they have this all covered. But the unfortunate truth is that we haven’t exactly lit up the draft these past few years. Hopefully we’ll at least see the interior addressed today. A solid OG would make me feel a lot better.

After a god nights sleep, i thought about the ODB pick and i actually really like the pick now. I woke up and realized that theres rounds 2 and 3 tonight and a TON of OL talent left in the draft; so JR can still work on the OL then. Back to ODB, he seems like very level headed individual; he appears to have a lot of ties to players on the giants and they guy is smooth in his route running; he maybe small but he plays big. I read somewhere they say he is comparable to SS12 but i think of Djax every time i watch highlights of ODB.

We have to remember that the Giants have a large (and expensive) scouting department. We tend to focus on the Head Coach and GM when they’re on the “hot seat” but the truth is, the head scouts are on notice here too. Reese hinted at that when he said that “the draft is game day for the scouts”. It’s time for them to sing for their supper and enable Reese to nail down a really good O-lineman at some point in this draft.

If the only good O-linemen we can draft are guys selected in the first round, who the hell needs scouts? I can do that. So can you.

While I realize there are still plenty of good OL left, it’s this that worries me. Getting mid to late OL has been the method we’ve used the past few years, and it hasn’t worked very well, which is partially the reason we are in this mess. What gives anyone confidence that their mid to late round scouting off OL is going to lead to good players this year? That’s why I wanted a round 1 guy, and why I still want two of the next 3 picks to be OL.

After painfully watching Mike Evans and Eric Ebron get selected before us, I thought for sure they would go Zack Martin, Lewan or Donald… I was kinda surprised they picked Beckum. They were so high on his punt and kickoff return ability but didn’t they sign Holiday for that? Quentin Demps? And am I wrong or is Beckum more of a slot receiver, a position that is currently held down by Victor Cruz? If they were going to pick a WR, I thought it would atleast be someone that has the mold of Evans or Burress or something similar.

I guess I would have rather had Martin and went DL in the 2nd and got a big WR in the 3rd or atleast trade back up into the 2nd again and get a WR.

With us clearly ignoring Martin as a top prospect, maybe JR is somewhat satisfied with our FA haul on the line. Do we move up tonite to bag a Morgan Moses or Kouandjo? If so, I see them as RTs. The LT spot is glaringly weak still….

I really wanted OLine so it would allow us to go after a Amaro / ASJenkins TE pick. That would have been really solid.

IMO, no, we shouldn’t have traded up from 12 to grab Matthews or Lewan. It would have cost too much and the Giants will need the picks to fill needs during the 3 season window they have to bag a third SB with Eli and TC.

But your question about trading up in the second round is intriguing to me because it won’t cost nearly as much. I like the idea if they can pull it off because they’ve got that extra pick in the 5th I’d gladly trade to pick up Kouandjio.

I’m a huge Gabe Jackson fan. He’s strictly a guard, but the guy is like a freaking wall. He doesn’t get the push you’d want, but he’s also big enough to be a disruptor and keep guys from getting in the gap. Lots of good OL prospects in the 2nd and 3rd.

Haha…you mean like the “genius” up in NE who jumped the shark taking Dominique Easley with the 29th pick–a guy who tore the ACL’s in both knees in the past two seasons? Could you imagine if Reese would have done something like that?

That pick is a head scratcher if I ever saw one. It makes no sense. The guy is talented, but he’s also had HUGE medical problems. Knee problems are bad enough, but when you’re a big dude like that and have them in each knee…yeah, not good. I remember hearing about JR checking him out, but it sounded like he’d be a day 2 (late 3rd round) pick. He would have been there in the 2nd at the very least. But oh well…that just leaves better stuff for us :)

You can only pick one person at a time .Thats first thing , so lets stop the grumbling and wait until after tonights picks before we criticize this pick. As far as trading up in a draft this deep – no way , you spend way too much to move up a small bit on the talent scale . As someone pointed out , the drop off in talent level in WR after ODB was much steeper than in other areas of need – I think thats exactly right .The Giants can still get high level Olinemen in the next two rounds . So lets catch up on the critiques of ODB that most of us had never read before , watch the highlight videos and start to appreciate that maybe the Giants did it right .

I was a little shocked with the pick at first, but apparently a LOT of teams were interested in him. It just came to light that the 49ers tried to trade up close to the top 10 in order to snag ODB. I still would have rather had a lineman, but I wasn’t thrilled on Zack Martin so it’s not like I’m really disappointed. If Lewan was available and we passed on him then I’d be a bit angry; although I’m a little ticked we passed on Aaron Donald. C’es la vie.

There is 1 thing I am very happy about. ODB is very talented AND I’m happier with him than Mike Evans. Yes, you read that right. I’m just not really a Mike Evans fan. The guy has absolutely fantastic size and pretty good speed, but he looks so freaking stiff in the hips and rather one dimensional. I’m not exactly sure that would work with the way this offense is going. He seems more like a glorified redzone threat, which is great, but I just don’t see him stretching the field whereas ODB is the aggressive type of WR, which I love. ODB will go up and get the ball. Nicks was the same way and I just feel that meshes very well with how Eli is.

So ,what are the perceived weakest spots on the Oline this year and the future ? At this point would it be Centre and right guard ? Im assuming that Beatty will be expected to rebound , Left guard is Ok , Centre stop gap and possible weakness with Snee at right guard and of course Pugh at RT . Others may see other weaknesses but now lets go to talent available , as we see , is the drop off in talent in the Dline available more precipitous than in the Oline ? Lets see if the Giants go for Dline first then and go for the Oline in the third round . Im guessing the Giants will be looking at the depth in each group and will take a player from the weakest group first .